Jean Shepherd, from his very own mouth, will tell you that, as far as he knows, no other writer today does what he does. "I'm one of the few writers that writes about American mythology," the Hoosier-born humorist said recently in a phone interview from his home in Florida, where he lives with his wife, author Lee Brown. Shepherd's writings about the mythology of our times formed the basis of his 1983 film A Christmas Story and continue in his latest movie, Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss, which premieres on The Disney Channel at 6 p.m. Saturday. It stars James B. Sikking as the dad, Dorothy Lyman as the mom, Jerry O'Connell as Ralph and Jason Clarke Adams as his brother, Randy. Shepherd wrote and narrated both movies. He was also the guiding force behind both, the uncredited producer. (He also appears in a cameo role) His stance as a writer is not a new one, Shepherd said. Mark Twain was castigated by his contemporaries for not writing about what was considered "important." "And Twain said that his stuff would be read a hundred years from now, because he wrote about eternal things, like the Mississippi River and being a boy," Shepherd said. The mythology of the American ritual is Shepherd's forte, and Ollie Hopnoodle takes on two of the most basic: the first job and the summer vacation. "You see, you can comment on the work ethic better by writing about the vacation rather than the work itself," Shepherd said. He paused, then added significantly, "It's got nothing to do with the Chevy Chase idea of vacation." Tbe family is the same as the one from A Christmas Story, only years later. They live in Shepherd's steel-mill hometown, Hammond, a place be left at 19 to join the Army. Tbe author, now 59, never returned. "You understand, I grew up in the steel mill area, so it's hard to have fond memories of Indiana," he said. "It's a tough, mean place up there." His early departure meant that he would see the rest of the world, making him more susceptible to the dubious charms of writing than his fellow Hoosiers. "Indiana has a long literary tradition: Kurt Vonnegut, Theodore Dreiser and all kinds of people from the past and present," he said. "But what they've had to do, generally, is, at an early age, leave Indiana. In other words, they didn't stay and work in Muncie or Indianapolis or Bloomington. Getting away is very important to becoming a serious writer." "Very few people that come out of the mill world become artists and writers. I think it's one of those things. Traditionally, when you grow up in a mill world, you stay in a mill world." Shepherd's "autobiographical" childhood incidents are actually fictional, merely flavored by his Hoosier past. "So many people just sit down and write what happened to them, and it's dull as dishwater because it's not universal," he said. "So when you write, you basically have to learn to forget about what happened to you, but keep in mind your emotions. Your emotions are universal.'' Ollie Hopnoodle, which Shepherd says is a "bit more sardonic than A Christmas Story," charts the trek of the family on vacation through the eyes of Ralph, the oldest son of the family. The key is: Ralph (voice by Shepherd) narrates the story as an adult. "When I write my work, I think I am writing about the present day. The character that talks about this is not a narrator. The character I always play is a contemporary man talking about this situation or time. And he's putting it into a contemporary view." His writings flow with American idiom and what he calls our "conversational" style. And Ollie Hopnoodle, he says with all the modesty Jean Shepherd can muster, is "the funniest movie we've ever done. That's strong language coming from the man behind PBS's Jean Shepherd's America and books like In God We Trust-All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories and Other Disasters and A Fistful of Fig Newtons. The movie, which will also air in April on PBS's American Playhouse, is a joint production between PBS and Disney, the first time PBS has formed a partnership with a commercial television company. The reason: It's an expensive project. Editorially, neither backer had any input. Shepherd retains total control. But he admits that he does not find the temporary nature of television attractive. He likes the movie business because his movies can then be seen around the world in perpetuity, joining, as he puts it, "the world literature of film." Why did he do Ollie Hopnoodle for TV? "Let's put it this way: They made me an offer I couldn't refuse." Shepherd takes great pains to make clear that he is the producer, the creative force, behind every movie he has made. On A Christmas Story, he was on the set daily with director Bob Clark. "People often ask me that. I think It's based on the old idea that there's a 'they' that makes your movie, that you give them the script and 'they' make the movie. We were the 'they.' We made the movie. If I don't like the movie, then I have failed. "I'm a filmmaker, just like Woody Allen is. I work with these people every minute of the day. I'm sitting in the editing room, giving orders and stuff. This is my film.''